Describing Remedy

One of my 107 assignments was to write about a work of art that was featured on campus. I decided upon Joanna Cleveland's Remedy.


Remedy, Oil on canvas, acrylic on vinyl, fabric, 2010

Remedy

The Boise State Hemingway Center was completely quiet as I opened the door, my footsteps echoing loudly on the wood floor as I began exploring. Around me, the partitions were covered with all types of artwork from photos to paintings to a strange, corner sculpture that resembled sheets of putty that had been stuck together and pulled apart. Though I explored the Fresh Air exhibition to see everything it had to offer, I knew from the beginning which piece I was going to write about, having seen an image of it in class the day before.

Joanna Cleveland’s Remedy hung near the back of the exhibit, an unframed, multilayered, 24”x24” canvas square. The painting is intriguing because it combines different mediums. The first layer is canvas, on which she has used oil paint to depict organic, flower-like images and long lines that stretch from one end of the plane to the other. These lines are useful in creating directional forces that draw the viewers’ eyes across the plane. On top of this layer, are some vinyl cut outs that have been painted with acrylic. These shapes, though I believe nonrepresentational, reminded me of slices of oranges or some other strange fruit. Finally, everything is covered in a light, filmy gauze. The interplay of actual textures such as the soft fuzziness of the gauze and the shiny, plastic coating of acrylic creates a beautiful contrast.
The painting’s sense of depth comes primarily through the use of overlap, both literal (in the case of the different layers of materials) and depicted. Light logic only seems to come into play on the canvas level where Cleveland uses modeling to create depth within the folds of the flower-like images.
It is an open piece, with the figures extending beyond the border of the painting. Positive shapes dominate the plane, crowding out much of the negative space, yet still, there is enough of a balance that the work does not seem crowded. The repetition of shapes and continuation of lines across the picture create a sense of unity.
Because of the beige background, I’m not sure if the work’s color scheme could be considered completely analogous or not, but primarily Cleveland uses deep red-violet for her flower-like shapes in the background, bright peach and orange for her vinyl shapes, and a light pinkish gauze on top. Other than the pink gauze, all the colors are opaque. It is appropriate that the lower layers are cooler in color since warmer colors reach out of the picture plane and appear closer than cooler colors.
Though all these elements work together to create an aesthetically pleasing work, I still wondered at the piece’s meaning. The shapes do not seem to be representational, so their intention is not immediately clear. Ultimately, I formed my opinions from the work’s title, Remedy.
The orange, fruit-like shapes reminded me of microorganisms that you would see under a microscope. Similarly, the purple flower-like shapes could also be seen as microorganisms or (if you interpreted them as flowers) could be symbolic of old apothecaries and the herbal remedies they provided. Since the shapes appear to “float” in and out of the plane, I saw the gauze as being the film in which germs float (gross, I know). Thus I saw the piece as wanting to find the beauty in medicine, turning the “beauty” of finding cures and saving lives into a tangible, beautiful image.
Or maybe I’m trying too hard to find meaning. Overall, the softness of the piece and long flowing lines create a sense of relaxation. Perhaps the remedy it provides is simply the happy endorphins that it creates in its viewers as they look at it.